Excellent, but slow moving character study. Far outshined Suspect Zero, which I saw the same day. Reminded me of Love Liza or Owning Mahowny in that it explores the character much more than the story.
Saw again on DVD after watching it in the theatre.
Penn's excellent in this. The guy who plays his boss is no slouch either. But yeah, just watching Penn in person makes me wonder what Robin Wright's goes through.
I don't like Sean Penn's politics at all, but I have to say he shined pretty bright in this role. Slow moving movie, though. I didn't know the story before the movie, but I pretty much guessed what he was going to do at the beginning. Perhaps that's why it was slow?
April was good for dvd's. I saw Criminal, Bad Education, Primer, Undertow, The Corporation and this movie.
I liked it.
It's very hard to dramatize the struggle some men have with work, specifically selling and office politics, and the extent to which their limitations define their personality and manifest themselves as personality disorders.
Death of A Salesman and Glengarry Glen Ross did this well. But the business world, which accounts for 30% of your life at least, does not translate well to film.
Is this the film that was filmed in part in Discovery Bay, California (possibly listed as Brentwood or Antioch)? I know there was a Sean Penn movie filmed there, and Naomi Watts was mentioned (I don't know anything about this movie though, so I'm not sure if this is the same one...I just recognize the name.)
I consider Disco Bay my hometown...I moved from there a few months before I heard about them filming something there. It's kind of a random shooting location. Now I live about twenty minutes away and people in my new town have never heard of it.
I've watched this a couple times now. It is a very slow character study. And yet, brilliant. Penn is brilliant.
*SPOILERS*
I love the scene where he's at home desperately waiting for news about his business loan, then a package finally arrives and he opens it, all his hopes and dreams on the line, and it's the divorce papers from his wife. And then the ensuing phone call with the mom-in-law. "...Then I'll just have to keep calling. I'll just have to keep calling..." The writer was really in-tune with this character and Penn nailed it.
Screenwriting is like stripping. You don't just dump your clothes on the floor. You tease as you go. And then you get screwed in a back room for money. - Craig Mazin
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